FLM Ballhead Review (CB-58 FTR, CB-48 FTR and CB-32 F)

As a landscape and travel photographer, I heavily rely on tripods. After making a number of wrong purchasing decisions early on in my photography career, I realized that a solid tripod and tripod head are very important – sometimes even more important than choosing a camera or a lens. A poor tripod setup can create many headaches and really mess up images, and tripod heads play a big part of that. Many cheap tripod heads sag even after they are tightened. Some can barely hold gear and shake like crazy in wind or when they are touched. Others have poor plates and attachments, making them very frustrating to use in the field. Unfortunately, many of us go through a number of bad tripod heads before realizing that we should have gotten something solid to begin with. For the past seven years, I have been very happy with the Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead. In fact, after using the BH-55 for a few years, I ended up buying a few more ballheads from RRS for other needs such as travel. However, after attending a few trade shows and seeing other options from other companies, I wanted to see if there was something even better than the RRS ballheads that I have come to trust and love. I bumped into FLM at Photo Plus New York last year and after talking to the company, I decided to give their ballheads a try and see how they compare to RRS. Thanks to FLM Canada, I was able to obtain three ballheads to test, the CB-58 FTR, CB-48 FTR and CB-32 F. In this review, I will go over these three ballheads in detail and discuss their pros and cons.

A 20 minute video of the three ballheads and comparisons to RRS is provided further down in the review. Let’s first start with the full-size ballhead, the FLM CB-58 FTR.

FLM CB-58 FTR

The CB-58 FTR is the biggest and the most capable full-size ballhead made by FLM, a company based out of Emmendingen, Germany that specializes on tripods, tripod heads and accessories. The professional-grade CB-58 ballhead is proudly made in Germany using high-strength, lead-free aluminum and its components are CNC-milled and then hand-polished with the highest precision to guarantee smooth movements and precise adjustments. The unique design of the CB-58 FTR incorporates a total of five different knobs that control different features of the ballhead (discussed in detail below), which is pretty unique, since most ballheads on the market typically come with two to three knobs at most. The ballhead can be purchased in a number of different clamp configurations, but the one that I received already featured the SRB-60 Arca-Swiss compatible quick release clamp.

It is a pretty big and heavy ballhead, but not as heavy as some other full-size ballheads on the market. For example, the RRS BH-55 is a bit heavier at 890 grams (although the bigger and the heavier clamp on the RRS definitely adds to the overall weight), while other ballheads like the Novoflex ClassicBall 5 II almost reach 1 kilogram of total weight without a clamp. It measures 111mm in height, which is fairly tall when compared to the RRS BH-55, which is noticeably shorter at 94mm.

The most impressive feature of the FLM CB-58 FTR is its maximum load capacity – at 55 kilograms, it is one of the most capable ballheads on the market. In comparison, the Really Right Stuff BH-55 is rated at 23 kg, less than half of what the CB-58 is capable of. Most other ballheads don’t even stand a chance, since they are rated even lower. Forget about the rating, is that number even realistic, or is it just a marketing gimmick? I had the same question and I decided to put the CB-58 through a few tests. My first test was to install a nodal slide on the ballhead, then with the ballhead mounted on a very sturdy Gitzo Systematic tripod, try to apply a lot of push / pull force on each side of the slide to see if I could force the ballhead to move. After several attempts, I gave up. All I ended up doing was moving my tripod around – the ballhead did not move even a bit. I then tried applying vertical force by moving the tripod to the ground. Again, nothing moved. My final test was to put it on the ground and try to stand on the nodal slide while holding on to a rail. All I ended up doing was making the ballhead move side to side because it was not attached to anything, but the head itself would not move. That’s pretty darn impressive! To be fair, I repeated these tests with my BH-55 and it did not move either, so my weight testing was not very conclusive. I guess without first mounting the tripod on a flat surface, it would be quite difficult to assess the true potential of the CB-58 when compared to other ballheads. But who cares really? I don’t know why anyone would want to put the load of a person on a ballhead – that’s not what these things are designed to do. Even with my BH-55 that is “only” rated at 23 kilograms, I have not had a situation where I needed more. Even when using very heavy older manual focus lenses like the Nikon 600mm f/4 IF-ED or the newer Nikon 800mm f/5.6 VR attached to a full-size Nikon D4 DSLR, I never managed to exceed 7 kilograms total, let alone 23 kg! And the CB-58 can more than double that, which is insane!

Aside from that, the CB-58 can do things that most other ballheads on the market, including ones from RRS cannot. For example, it can be locked to tilt in one direction, something I have previously only seen on the UniqBall. Another great feature is the ability to switch from smooth panning base to geared panning, which is a feature I wish every tripod had. In addition, one can rotate the base to 0° and press the “15° STOP” button to fully lock the panning base, in order to be able to quickly detach it from a tripod – a very useful feature in those situations where a ballhead can get stuck to the tripod base. These are all great features to have on a ballhead and that’s where most other ballheads on the market miss out in comparison.

Take a look at what each knob does:

Main Knob: to tighten / loosen the head

Tension Knob (on top of the Main Knob): to add tension to the main knob, so that the head does not easily fall off

Tilt Knob: to control tilting in one direction

15° Stop Knob: the knob controls whether the panning base is geared or not (geared panning base rotates in 15° increments). The button on top of the knob allows locking the head in 0° position for easy tripod removal

Pan Knob: to allow base panning

As you can see, the CB-58 comes with a number of unique features that make it stand out from its competition. Most other ballheads, including my RRS BH-55 only have a few knobs to control the tension and basic panning only.

While these features are indeed very nice (I am especially a big fan of the geared panning base), I personally found two issues with the FLM CB-58, one of which is present on all FLM ballheads. First, the tilt feature is not as useful as it looks. While it could come in handy for doing things like vertical panoramas, I would not trust it to be able to handle heavy gear. The problem is, even with the tilt knob fully tightened, I could still get the head to move in other directions with enough force. So if you have heavy gear and you are thinking about using this ballhead as a gimbal, I would be extra careful – it might not be a good idea, since the setup could start falling sideways. Unlike UniqBall that can freely move in any direction, but never on the sides (making it a potential gimbal replacement), the CB-58 cannot be locked to perform a similar function.

Second, it takes many turns on the main knob to fully tighten the head, which is rather annoying – something I had a hard time getting used to. With my BH-55, a quarter of a turn on the main knob loosens or tightens the setup, which is something I am very used to. Most other tripods behave very similarly in this regard. However, with the FLM ballheads, you have to turn the main knob many times. Going from a fully loose to a fully tightened position can take as many as three full turns, which is a lot! Considering that you will be resetting your hand every half turn or so, that translates to something like 6-7 total rotations that are needed. If one needs to make quick adjustments, that process will certainly take more time in the field when compared to other ballheads. While one can somewhat restrict this with the tension knob, it still takes a few turns to fully lock the head. This problem is universal across all FLM heads, since it is designed this way. I am sure one can get used to this behavior overtime, but I certainly found it to be a bit time consuming and annoying.

These issues are discussed in detail in my video review of the three ballheads:

Overall, despite the above-mentioned issues, I found the FLM CB-58 to be one of the best ballheads I have handled so far. If you have heavy gear and you need one of the sturdiest and most reliable heads on the market, I would certainly trust the CB-58 to fit the bill. At $450 with a quick-release clamp, it has excellent value, something I would certainly recommend over most other full-size ballheads, including the RRS BH-55.

FLM CB-48 FTR

The FLM CB-48 FTR is a smaller brother of the CB-58 and it is the second biggest ballhead made by FLM. At 582 grams, it is lighter and also noticeably smaller than the CB-58, with its 65 x 99mm dimensions. It can handle less load, but not by a huge margin – still quite a bit more than what the full-size BH-55 can do! It has the same design and knobs as its bigger brother, so it is identical in its functionality, with the ability to tilt, as well as being able to do geared panning and easy tripod removal.

I found the listed specifications to be a bit confusing. While B&H lists maximum load capacity of 55 kg for the CB-58 and 35 kg for the CB-48, the FLM website shows the two to be 60 kg and 45 kg consecutively. I am not sure which one is more accurate, but I guess it does not matter all that much, because these ratings are pretty crazy anyway. Whether the CB-48 can handle 35 kg or 45 kg does not matter for me personally, because both are still quite a bit more than what the RRS BH-55 and most other ballheads can do.

To be honest, if I were to pick between the CB-58 and the CB-48, I would go with the latter, since it is smaller, lighter and can handle anything you throw at it. In fact, I would probably even go for the smaller CB-38 FTR model that can handle 25 kg of weight and only weighs 436 grams. Considering that all these ballheads come with identical features and knobs, why not pick the smaller and lighter one? If you have heavy gear and a full-size tripod, then perhaps the CB-48 or CB-43 would be the way to go, but for an everyday setup with a DSLR or a mirrorless camera and standard lenses, I would personally go for a smaller setup.

FLM CB-32 F

In fact, if you need a lightweight ballhead for travel, something like the CB-32 F would be potentially ideal. I requested this little guy to see how it would perform when traveling and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it performed. I mounted fairly heavy cameras on this ballhead, including a Sony A9 with the Sony 100-400mm GM lens and it handled everything I threw at it without any problems. At 311 grams, it is lighter than my RRS BH-30 and it can still handle up to 20 kg of weight compared to the 7 kg rating on the BH-30.

Below are the main specifications of this ballhead:

Model: CB-32 F

Maximum Load Capacity: 20 kg / 44.1 lbs

Center Ball Diameter: 32mm

Dimensions: 47 x 79mm (diameter x height) / 1.85 x 3.11″

Weight: 311 grams / 0.69 lbs

Bottom Thread: 3/8 inches

Obviously, all the standard knobs seen on other larger FLM ballheads would not fit on this guy, so it only comes with three of them: main, tension and panning knob. Still, even with the limited number of features, it still outdoes most other similar travel-size ballheads (including the RRS BH-30) when it comes to maximum load capacity and ability to add tension.

In addition to this model, FLM has a number of other ballheads that are even smaller, so if you are looking for something lighter, check out the CB-24 and CB-18 models.

Build Quality

When it comes to build quality, as I have already pointed out above, the FLM ballheads are made incredibly well, definitely built to last for many years to come. FLM manufactures each ballhead in Germany and aside from a few screws that they buy from other suppliers, everything else is CNC machined, then hand-polished and assembled by the company employees. This high quality is clearly visible when handling the products – every little part looks precise and nicely finished, something I cannot say about many other ballheads I have used in the past. Although I have only used these FLM ballheads for about two months, I have certainly abused them quite a bit in the field and they performed very well.

Stability

Each FLM ballhead I have tested for this review, including the smallest CB-32 F, showed amazing stability in the studio and in the field. Even when using fairly heavy equipment, I did not have any issues with sagging / drifting, which is great. Once you fully tighten the main knob, the center ball does not move at all and you can let go of your equipment without concerns of it suddenly dropping or falling. So you don’t have to worry about any play or wobbling issues with any of the FLM ballheads, which is great. In addition, I did not see any signs of shaking when touching and operating the ballheads – even the smallest CB-32 F worked extremely well, providing very secure and stable setup for the cameras I used on it.

Summary

After testing FLM ballheads, I must say that I am now a big fan! These ballheads exceeded my expectations in every way and when compared to my Really Right Stuff ballheads that I have been using for so many years, they certainly outperform them, often by a big margin. They are built extremely well, handle more load than you will ever need and have features that most other ballheads on the market do not. My favorite feature is the ability to switch from smooth panning to geared panning – something I found to be incredibly useful when shooting panoramas (I wish every tripod had this capability). I would certainly not hesitate to recommend FLM to our readers.

Where to Buy

You can purchase FLM ballheads from our trusted partner B&H Photo Video using the links below:

Related articles:

About Nasim Mansurov

Nasim Mansurov is a professional photographer based out of Denver, Colorado. He is the author and founder of Photography Life, along with a number of other online resources. Read more about Nasim here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

1) Andrew Russell

September 19, 2017 at 7:01 am

I bought the FLM CB-32 F a year ago, and I love it. I actually like it better than my more expensive Markins Q3. It’s reasonably small and light, and it just feels responsive and sharp. It’s also strong enough to hold my D810 + Sigma 150-600 S, amazingly. It’s a great little ballhead. I use it with this tiny tripod for when I need to get low to the ground.

Andrew, thank you for your feedback! I have the RRS version of the table top tripod and I also love it – I take it with me when traveling. A small ballhead on a small tabletop like that would work great for sure.

Good review, It’s nice to know there are options. I recently went with a RRS package for legs and BH-55 head and i love it. The only thing that i could see that the FLM head doesn’t have is i find it useful to have 2 cutouts to turn the head all the way to the side. For what ever reason i find myself liking the flexibility it offers with having access to the knobs at different angles depending on my situation.

Andrew, thank you for your feedback! I love my BH-55, but rarely ever use it on the side cutouts, since I use L-plates with my cameras and I find it more convenient to use those instead of turning the setup to the side. If you don’t have L-plates, I would definitely recommend them! I own some from RRS, but others from companies like Sunwayfoto also work great and they are much cheaper.

If you use the vertical side of your L-bracket with the cutout on the Markins ballheads, you have a poor man’s gimbal, assuming the ballhead base doesn’t interfere. Works even better with a telephoto lens that comes with a ‘foot’ and rotating ring.

Na sim, I’m sure there are still more than just a few old codgers like that visit this site. Old codgers that still work with pounds/oz and inches. Any chance you could list both methods in future articles?

Nice review, Nasim. Those surely look like well-engineered tools that probably make one happy when using them. (Few things in life give me as much pleasure as using a high-quality tool…)

In the light of your recent article and for the sake of people on a budget, I am happy to say that my Sirui K-20X (23 cm diameter ballhead, 400g, theoretical 25 kg load capacity, arca style plates) has never once let me down after 3.5 years. I’ve extensively used it for landscape and astro photography, from freezing cold to tropical conditions, with a longest focal length of 800 mm on aps-c (Sigma 400mm f/5.6 + 2x TC on Eos 70D) without any sag. The only minor “issue” is that the tightness scale around the main knob has the tendency to “slip” after a while so that “0” isn’t entirely loose and “11” isn’t entirely fixed anymore. I can imagine this would drive those with a tendency towards OCD mad, but frankly, I operate my gear without looking at scales anyway, so it never bothered me.

Just my two cents. Many other PL readers will have good (and bad?) experiences with a large variety of brands and types, and I’d be interested in reading about any of them.

Greg, thank you for your feedback! The Sirui K-20x is a replica of the Arca-Swiss Z1 that I used for a number of years before getting the RRS BH-55. It was a nice tripod, but it had a very serious engineering problem – the head would fall off with very heavy gear, because the company apparently used some type of glue that would not be able to hold heavy loads. It was a recall I believe, but after what I heard, I never trusted that ballhead again. Arca Swiss fixed the problem afterwards in a newer version of the ballhead, but I was not keen on getting another one. And by the way, it has the same tension “screw” on the side, which also slips overtime. Hopefully the Sirui K-20x is free from such issues – make sure that the head piece is bolted on to the center ball before you decide to put very heavy gear on it. I found more than one ballhead that had a similar problem, which is why I am letting you know. Still, at $130 USD the Sirui looks like a bargain. There are many other ballheads on the market that are also quite good and capable – great that we have so many options!

Thanks for the heads-up, Nasim. Although it’s no exact replica, I can indeed see the strong resemblance with the Z1. At the moment my own system is fairly light-weight, and I can’t say I’ve seen mention of the Z1’s engineering problem with respects to the Sirui, but it’s good to stay vigilant.

As you say, the present times are great for the vast number of options!

Greg, there’s a difference of factor 10 when it comes to cm and mm. 23 cm are 9 inches… I doubt such a ballhead is exisiting :)

As for FLM: When I switched to Arca-type plates, I was looking as well for something to replace the Manfrotto 410 quick relase system. I like the way the plates click in it and are safe, but not tightened. As far as I know, there’s only the FLM quick release clamps doing the same – just better :) Only disadvantage: They are very picky when it comes to suitable plates. Most chinese ones are too big, as well as PeakDesign’s and a couple of other brands. I simply don’t like the screw clamps.

Other than that, the ball head looks great and tempting. I just have already a bit too much heads.

That’s one of the reasons why I don’t see quick release clamps and always use screw-type clamps – I have seen situations where some plates are either too big or too loose on the head. I wish everyone used exactly the same dimensions for Arca-Swiss, but unfortunately, that’s not the case for many manufacturers.

I researched all your writings on ball heads to figure out what I actually needed for multi-row panoramics. My conclusion was a sturdy Toyota-class ball fit my needs every bit as well as the BMW-class. I settled on the Surui K-40X at 1/3 the price of the CB-58.

I found that a knob release is much less finicky than a lever release. For panorama use, I added the RRS PC-PRO panning base and MPR-192 PPP nodal slide kit. For multi-row panoramic tilts, I use the Surui L-10 and RRS B2-mAS clamp.

This combination is fast, sturdy and highly workable for single and multi-row panoramas. The Surui L-10 is very useful on a monopod or ball head where only Tilt is required.

This is probably one of the best reviews I’ve seen, I like the RSS quick release pan head. Also the bubble levels on those heads are nice. The FLM 15 degree stops would be great for 360 panos. I’ve used an Arca Swiss ball head for years, no complaints, I don’t shoot many landscapes.

Paul, thank you for your feedback! I will try to put together a comparison between different ballheads. Unfortunately, it won’t be as comprehensive as I was initially hoping it would be – some head manufacturers are hard to reach. I might delay my research and do a comparison later this year with more tripod head options, we will have to see.

Hi Masim, try out the Area Swiss P0 with Fliplock Quickset sometime, you’ll be amazed with it. I’ve used B1s & B2s down though the years with all my gear, from 5X4s, RZ67s to current Hassy H kit. When my old B2 needed replacing I looked at RRS and of course Arca Swiss, and I was advised to try out the P0. I balked at it initially, thinking it was way too light to be steady, not to mention it was upside down ! Man, was I wrong ! You won’t use any other type of head after using a P0, its just effortless, and the panning plate on top makes shooting panos a breeze, or in my case simply making slight framing adjustments when everything has been levelled … without the having to do the whole shebang again !

Barry, a friend of mine uses the Arca-Swiss Monoball P0 and he loves it. I tried it a few times and it seemed to be pretty good, although it certainly takes time to get used to. As for the panoramic option, I also love being able to do leveling right on the head with my BH-55 and the pano clamp – I cannot imagine going back to leveling the tripod legs anymore.

Well, panoramas usually are calculated by software. Although it’s really nice to be able to contuinue the pano blindly, it’s still no problem doing it per eyeball. I also like the P0 very much, I just would never buy a d4 again.

KomradeKiev : Yes the P0 has indexing marks on the panning base, but like Joachim says above, the software is so good these days, its really easy just to eyeball it, erring on the conservative side and let the software do the rest. I’ve seen a guy do insane 360 panos from the middle of the crowd at a live gig, just handheld … totally flawless … just insane !! I think he used Autopano Pro, which I use myself whenever I need a really good pano.

Steve, some Manfrotto heads are OK, but most of them I am certainly not a big fan of :) The same with Gitzo heads. I don’t get it – Gitzo makes some of the best tripods on the market, but their heads are so bad! As for the geared panning feature, I have not seen that on many tripods – last time I saw a solid geared panning head, it was from Novoflex.

I am curious. I recently purchased a Gitzo Systematic GT3543LS which I use with my Manfrotto gimbal for longer lenses. (The combination fits snugly inside a Manfrotto MBAG80 bag). I do not have a head I regard as suitable for my shorter lenses. I was thinking of a Gitzo GH1382QD but I am aware you don’t like Gitzo tripod heads Why?. I would like any ball head to be light but stable. What would you suggest?

Martin, I have tried a few Gitzo heads and I have seen a number of them in the field – they were all junk. Too heavy, too expensive, too clunky to use and didn’t standardize on Arca-Swiss while everyone else was at the time. I know Gitzo also went Arca-Swiss at some point, and I even received emails about Arca-Swiss conversions from Gitzo, but I lost interest in their heads. Gitzo makes some of the best tripods, but their heads always sucked. If you want a good ballhead, look elsewhere – RRS, Kirk, Markins, FLM, Arca-Swiss and Novoflex to list a few, all make much better tripod heads.

Do these ballheads have any shift on tightening? Those shifts, which might not be noticeable at shorter focal lengths, can become an issue at 200mm and downright annoying at 400mm. I find composing with a lens with a tripod collar on a ballhead a little awkward (too many degrees of freedom of movement), and even small shifts make it worse.

I’m actually taking a second look at my ancient Benbo 3-way panhead. It’s compact, locks solidly, and actually tilts more than 90 degrees so tripod level is not always critical. I don’t like most other panheads I’ve looked at.

I used to use Linhof quick release clamps and plates. They were much faster than screw clamps and more foolproof, but they were made from heavy solid brass and the plates just don’t work well now with my DSLR.

Richard, that’s another great feature of FLM heads – they have no shift in tightening when using long lenses. Once the main knob is locked tight, the head does not move at all, which is not something I could say about most ballheads on the market. Because of this, I ended up getting an Arca Swiss Cube, because I was tired of making constant adjustments to the ballheads I was using, including the BH-55.

The Arca Swiss Cube looks like a beast, and it’s beastly expensive! (You know you can’t afford it when the official leather pouch is about $250.) The FLM heads look like a bargain in comparison. I’m definitely going to have to keep the FLMs in mind. Thanks!

Yeah, I know what you mean… I have a Gitzo Systematic tripod (love it) and a Gitzo ballhead. And while the Gitzo ballhead is very well made, I would like to be able to afford the Arca-Swiss C1 cube, a beautiful piece of engineering. I’m looking at the Nikon D850 as an upgrade from my Nikon D4S, however each time I think about the Arca-Swiss C1 – gee what to do haha. I must say though the FLM gear looks pretty good.

Richard, yes, the Cube is one of the best on the market and it is a very expensive ballhead. Unfortunately, it does not have a cheaper alternative. I have tried the geared Manfrotto version and it was not as good in comparison due to its play. Still, most people don’t need that kind of precision, so a ballhead will do the job!

the Cube – a ballhead? It’s (at least in my opinion) a geared head*. Super stable, but not exactly versatile or lightweight. Like the d4, the smaller colleague, it’s lacking in the 2016 version the 3rd geared axis. IMO a big disadvantage to Manfrotto 400, 405, 410 and the like. Actually, for that reason (and out of curiosity) I bought a plastic Manfrotto geared head XPRO. I made the experience that plastic swallows much more vibrations than metal. If at all a difference between two pictures (in terms of vibration dues to shutter shock) exists, it’s in favor for the plastic head – to my own surprise.

For the Gitzo heads I partly agree. The off-center ones were pretty good when they were made in France, but since Gitzo joined together with Manfrotto and is made on the same , the main quality is “the look an design” but not the flawless production. Pity. I have a GH3780 which I like because of the simplicity and the better freedom in 90°. But it’s not as capable and functional as the FLMs, by a huge step.

* which leads me to the question: 15° steps do count in English as “gear”? I thought “catch” or”latch” is something close to it? I’m no native speaker and a bit confused.

Very interesting! Being from Europe, I’m currently debating between Flm and novoflex classicball since they are cheaper here than RRS. Since you mention novoflex, how do you compare flm and novoflex?

I also liked the fact that you suggested to downgrade and not to go for the 58. How would you compare the novoflex classicball 3 and 5? The 5 seems overkill to me (my biggest lens would be a nikon 200-500)

Gunther, Novoflex ballheads are also very nice, but they are pricier than FLM (even without any head attachments), at least in the USA and do not have all the features that FLM provides. Personally, I would go for the FLM, since you get a lot of value out of these ballheads. And Novoflex cannot compete with FLM on weight ratings either. I have tried out the ClassicBall 5 but did not have much experience with it in the field. It looked pretty solid, just like most other Novoflex products.

Thank you for the excellent review. Based on this, when I am in the market again for another ball head for heavier gear the CB-48 FTR is an obvious choice. My existing ball head has slightly lower specs but still easily held a 500mm F4 Nikon with a full frame camera. I don’t end that lens anymore and what I do have is even lighter. This should do the same with more flexibility, as you detailed. Easy choice.

Thank you for your feedback! The CB-48 FTR might still be overkill for you, since you now shoot with lighter gear. I would go with something smaller, such as the CB-43 OR CB-38 – excellent ballheads that are much smaller and lighter than their bigger counterparts.

Thanks for this review. Please, allow me to ask something that is bothering me.

I got my first ball head last year, and I’m still wondering something… Are we supposed to shoot only when the ball is locked?

I guess not, otherwise the gimbal sidekick would not exist, but…

My ball head movements are not smooth when using it as an “action” gear. With my 300mm 2.8 on (ball at an average strength), when I do some left-right movements – slow paced action, not fast bird gimbal action –, I get a small play between the housing and the panning base (locked) before and/or at the same time as the ball (unlocked) is moving, making a simple horizontal panning feel not smooth.

NBJ, actually, you are supposed to lock down the ballhead in vertical orientation when using a sidekick. The horizontal movement is provided by your ballhead’s panning base, while the vertical movement is done by the sidekick – the ballhead is supposed to be locked in tight.

Sorry, I was not clear: I don’t use a sidekick. That was just to acknowledge the action capabilities of ball heads (for myself). But yeah, the ball is not even moving in this case, so I was wrong to talk about it.

My doubts are about the left-right feeling when only the ball is unlocked; for instance following a slow-paced subject where a gimbal would be overkill, or just moving the lens to aim something else.

Hi guys, Personally, I had bad experience with FLM heads 32 and 38. First of all, its quick clamp cannot lock arca plate that comes with Peak Design “Capture something”. Then it’s friction control worked very strange, tension was not enough even in max position and the last is the head was slightly moving down when you tightened the main knob and let the camera stand by itself. Might be the units were broken, I don’t know. I returned them both and went for used Novoflex Classic ball 3, it’s much better.

The FLM quick clamps work best with FLM plates. Unfortunately, “Arca-Swiss style” is an analogy to “some swallow-tailish thingy to mount underneath a camera body” and not by far a real standard like 1/4″ 20G for tripod screws or M67×0.75 for filter threads. Or the much simpler desgined Manfrotto PL410 which also click and secure quickly.

I had to mill nearly all plates a bit to fit in the FLM quick release. And I would not have done it if it was not worth the effort. I can click in any camera single-handed. The good thing was, not plate was too small. The better thing would have been that FLM would have taken care to Arca’s manufacturer standard (I mean “Arca”, not all the chinese copies floating the market).

Nasim, a great review, thank you. I just wanted to clear up a misconception that you discussed, namely that the friction requires many turns to tighten to full. While this is true if the friction knob is used by itself, if you add the function of the stop ring (the black ring with numbers), you can then set a higher minimum friction. In practical terms, this means you can keep the friction at, say “4” instead of “1”, and that way to fully tighten the ball takes only 1-2 turns. It’s outlined in this brief video: www.youtube.com/watch…wq59TF7GrM The friction knob is also very precise, even a turn of 1˚ makes a difference, so the ball head can be fine-tuned to any load. Once again, thank you for a wonderful and thorough review!

I am not aware that there are any standards with regard to rating load capacities of ball heads. It is possible that RRS is more conservative in their ratings, so the difference may not be significant between the two. Thanks for the review. Jeff

This is an interesting subject. I tried an FLM head a couple of years ago but didn’t get on with it. I also tried a Manfrotto tripod but didn’t get on with that either. I was a bit fed up by this stage. In the end I settled on a Uniqball atop a Gitzo Systematic series 2. In my opinion the head is the most important component, followed by the tripod, then the lens and lastly the camera. I’m still happily using a six year old D7000. If you don’t get the right head and tripod I think it becomes an exercise in frustration, to the point where you can start to lose enthusiasm for photography altogether.

A very nice ballhead. I just counted the knobs: 4 aroud the cylinder (+ additional force ring for the main knob), plus one screw for the clamp. And all have the same design, meaning “do feel the same”.

I don’t know, but to handle all these knobs, wouldn’t it be better to have different haptics? Maybe I just conclude from my own confusion with “too similar” elements. Usually, when I use the tripod head, I concentrate on framing very much and I appreciate to find all elements of the head “blindly” by just touching them. So it’s either few elements (more than one with the same haptics is not working well for me) or I can feel and remember the differnent shape of the surface. Like smooth / rough, metal / rubber, round / triangular, straight / wavy, spheric / prismatic (surface of the rubber).

Great review. I’ve had the FLM system (tripod and CB-48FTR head) now for 1 year and am enjoying it very much. Ari at FLM Canada was was geat to work with. He was very helpfull in selecting the right system for my needs. I used to have “cheap” tripod. After reading many of your reviews and suggestions for getting a decent tripod/head system, last year I finally splurged on myself. It was such a huge difference to have a “professional system”. The CB-48FTR is silky smooth. very nice to use.

I tried the FLM CP-26 tripod earlier this year. It didn’t suit my needs and I ended up returning it, but I was impressed with the workmanship and the help I got from FLM’s North American representative. I bought a much larger Gitzo instead.

People looking for tripod heads should also consider Acratech. I have the Nomad head and it works very well, especially considering the weight.

Dear Nassim, Will you suggest a tripod and ball head for me ? The camera I use is Nikon D800 and the heaviest lens that I have is Tamaron 150-600.This combination when used on my Slik carbon fibre tripod drags and do not stay locked during shoots.I have no plans to add heavier lenses to my list except Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 .Hope to see your advise.Thanks in advance.

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